1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the mounting and support of hard disk drives for computers and, in a preferred embodiment thereof, more particularly relates to apparatus for removably supporting a plurality of hot plug-connected hard disk drives.
2. Description of Related Art
Hard disk drives for a file server or other type of computer are often mounted, in a vertically or horizontally stacked array, in a rectangular sheet metal xe2x80x9ccagexe2x80x9d structure which may be disposed within the computer housing or externally thereto. For operational convenience and flexibility, each disk drive is typically xe2x80x9chot plugxe2x80x9d connected within the cage. This type of electrical connection permits any of the supported disk drives to be removed and re-installed within the cage without disturbing the operation of the other disk drives.
To effect this desirable hot plug connection of each of the disk drives, each disk drive is typically supported on a carrier structure which is slidably and removably insertable into the cage to mate an electrical connector carried on a rear portion of the drive or its carrier structure with a corresponding electrical connector on a back plane circuit board suitably supported at the rear interior side of the cage.
As might be imagined, a closely grouped array of hard drives of this sort can generate a substantial amount of operating heat. Such operating heat must, of course, be appropriately dissipated in order to prevent damage to the drives and their associated electronic circuitry. The traditional approach to this heat dissipation task has been to use one or more cooling fans to flow air across the drives to convectively cool them. With older, relatively slow speed disk drives, this convective cooling approach has been generally satisfactory. However, with modern higher speed disk drives (having spin rates in the 10,000-12,000 RPM range) forced convective cooling by itself is declining in effectiveness as the amount of air fans can efficiently move through limited cage spaces is limited.
Due to this diminishing effectiveness of convection-only cooling of carrier-mounted hard disk drives, recent proposals have been made to add conduction to the cooling arsenal. This has been done primarily by screwing the drives directly to metal portions of their associated carriers. This technique has proven to only marginally lower the operating temperatures of the supported disk drives and only minimally reduces the forced convection cooling requirements of the overall system.
In view of the foregoing it can be seen that, in the area of carrier supported hot-pluggable hard disk drives, a need exists for improved heat dissipation techniques. It is to this need that the present invention is directed.
In carrying out principles of the present invention, in accordance with a preferred embodiment thereof, a computer system is provided which includes a CPU unit having a microprocessor and a data storage section operative to store data retrievable by the microprocessor. The data storage section includes a housing structure in which a stacked series of data storage devices, illustratively hot-pluggable hard disk drives, are removably supported using specially designed heat dissipating carrier structures upon which the individual disk drives are mounted. The carrier structures function to efficiently dissipate, to cooling air being flowed through the housing structure, operating heat generated by the disk drives.
Each carrier structure, which may be configured to support a heat-generating electronic device other than a hard disk drive, basically comprises a body configured to support the disk drive and being removably insertable into the housing structure to a supported operating position therein. The body has a thermally conductive heat sink portion positionable in the path of cooling air flowing through the support housing and being movable toward and away from the body-supported disk drive.
A resilient, heat conductive thermal interface structure is provided and is positionable between the supported disk drive and the movable heat sink portion of the body. The carrier structure further includes a fastening structure operative to removably secure the heat sink portion to the supported disk drive, in a manner compressing the resilient interface structure between the heat sink portion and the disk drive, to conductively receive operating heat from the disk drive for dissipation from the heat sink portion to cooling air being flowed through the housing structure.
In a preferred embodiment of the carrier structure, it includes a base wall upon which the disk drive may be placed, and the movable heat sink portion includes a pair of finned heat sink side walls which have front ends pivotally connected to a front end portion of the base wall, and rear ends coupled to a rear end portion of the base wall in a manner limiting the pivotal movement of these heat sink side walls toward and away from the disk drive disposed therebetween on the base wall.
Preferably, the thermal interface structure includes a pair of resilient, heat conductive thermal interface pads which are secured to facing side surfaces of the heat sink side walls. The fastening structure illustratively includes threaded fastening members captively retained on the heat sink side walls and being releasably securable to opposite sides of the disk drive to releasably mount it on the carrier structure and compress the thermal interface pads between the heat sink side walls and opposite side surface portions of the disk drive.
When the disk drives are operatively mounted in the housing structure, operating heat from each disk drive is conductively transferred through its thermal interface pads to the associated finned heat sink walls on opposite sides of the disk drive for convective dissipation to cooling air being flowed through the support housing. To increase such convective heat transfer, front end portions of the heat sink side walls on each carrier structure are defined by spaced apart fin members that extend in side-to-side directions and form therebetween cooling air flow passages positioned adjacent the front end of the supported disk drive. The carrier structures thus function to operatively support the disk drives in the housing structure and also provide for the disk drives an enhanced level of operating heat dissipation.